he does not think senator byrd cares about or and policy. -- foreign policy. senator byrd convinces him he wants to be involved in foreign policy. as the book unfolds and as i learned about it, it is amazing to see how strong he is on foreign policy almost from the beginning. he plays this phenomenally important role. it is not just who has the votes, but he understands the substance better than anyone else. they all went down to panama, but he leads one of the first trips. he goes down there and he learns the panama issues. he brought the same dedication to every issue. one thing i say in the book is he knew that just being leader did not make you a great senator automatically. whoever heard of scott lucas and william nolan, senate majority leaders before lyndon johnson. you never heard of them because they did not do anything. robert byrd brought that extra dimension to it, the foreign policy knowledge. the second thing about him as leader was he really understood the importance of a relationship with the president of the united states. byrd was ambivalent a